I went shopping today for some more little holiday gifts (Hanukkah? Christmas? who can say...) and left feeling just kind of fed up and depressed with local offerings. "Sadbarg" is sort of like a central department store, post-Soviet style. Meaning that in its interior halls it is filled to overflowing with a combination of little glassed-in storefronts and counters, but the goods on sale leave something to be desired.
They are OK -- I have kind of followed a strange trajectory on them. In the beginning everything just looked like cheap trash. Then I started to distinguish the super cheap from the sorta cheap and the things that were made with some degree of quality. The turtleneck sweater that I bought for Anya, to go together with a little pink sweater dress, for the kids' New Year's party at the Embassy this afternoon, both of Chinese manufacture, actually seems to be better than expected. Others have even commented that they're surprised I found it at Sadbarg. I'm tempted to go back and get another from Dilshod, the friendly proprietor of the glassed-in shop "Fashion Kids."
But I guess today I was on the downturn again, and everything just looked like shoddy crap to me. I think the way everything is crammed together, with very little rhyme and reason (OK, yes, clothing is generally separate, and there are other sections where drugstore-type items and cleaning supplies are sold, but there is still a sense that you might find the category of thing you're looking for or you might not -- I am a little tired of that insecurity and the subsequent need to traipse all over town if I really want to find a particular thing). And no wrapping paper in sight, just little Christmas bags.
*Sigh* Luckily I have a few things bought locally, and a few things bought online, and I think I'll be OK. And I am telling myself to buy some supplies for the future online, as they come on post-Christmas discount, and (as always) to think about this earlier in the year next time around!
2 comments:
Sounds like "Soviet"-style shopping experience to me, when you have to buy it immediately, when you see it, because you may never see it on sale again, and when actually having a plan for what to cook for dinner, before you head to the market/grocery store is entirely useless,because they may not have the key ingredients (that up till then have been for sale every day on every street corner). Frustrating! (Also makes you a very strange shopper back in the U.S. context..I am still struggling with some hoarding tendencies..:))
(Happy Holidays though!! :))
Exactly! I'm sure this all sounds very familiar to you, Kadri. I suppose shopping in Dushanbe is in some ways like entering a time warp, although surely even now there is much wider availability of Things here than before 1991. In terms of manufactured stuff, it just seems like Tajikistan is the destination for the bottom of the barrel items made in China and in some cases Turkey, and there is just so very little of anything of higher quality for sale here. The slightly better stuff from those exporters apparently goes, among other places, to the Russian Far East (judging now in retrospect from shopping experiences in Vlad). And of course the top rung stuff makes it to the United States market.
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